A new Japanese spot has debuted in the neighborhood. The fresh addition to Downtown Bellevue, called Department Bento, is located inside the Nordstrom store at 100 Bellevue Square.
Department Bento hails from Seattle superchef Tom Douglas, who owns 16 restaurants around the city, including Lola, Dahlia Lounge and Etta's. This is his first project on the Eastside, offering a fast-casual "build-your-own" concept inspired by the Japanese bento boxes at his Belltown restaurant Tanakasan.
Diners choose between a bento box, rice bowl or salad, then pick a "main" (like teriyaki skirt steak, albacore tuna poke or curried chicken) and top it off with a choice of vegetable dishes like matcha green beans and orange-miso cauliflower.
With a four-star rating out of two reviews on Yelp so far, Department Bento has made a promising start.
Devon C., who was among the first Yelpers to review the new spot on June 24, wrote, "This is delicious. It's amazing how many different flavors you can have on a plate! The rice was a bit dry but still tasty, and everything else was so good. The bento is a lot more food than it looks."
Yelper Vivian H. added, “I chose seared tofu as my protein and [my husband] had the salmon. Between the two of us, we got to try all of the different onigiri options: carrot ginger, red beet, wasabi furikake, shiitake mushroom. For my veggie, I chose the matcha green beans and DH had the honey sesame carrots."
Swing on by to take a peek for yourself: Department Bento is open from 11 a.m.–8:30 p.m. on Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.–6 p.m. on Sunday.
